


a synthesis of life and death and life again

by starlightwalking



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Jonathon Stroud Read This and So Should You, Lockwood & Co Zine, The Empty Grave Spoilers, Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: It stains them both. There is something Other about all of Lockwood and Co. after their journey through the portal, but none are so marked as they are.(Another take on how The Empty Grave could have ended.)





	a synthesis of life and death and life again

**Author's Note:**

> A piece for the Lockwood & Co. zine!!  
> This is a very loose take on the canon rules of how life and death work. I had this idea in its vaguest form before TEG came out, and I wanted to explore an alternate ending to that story.  
> The title is a quote from the musical Pippin that I thought was very fitting.
> 
>  
> 
> also like. Jonathon Stroud read the zine this was in and Um I still haven't recovered from that

It stains them both. There is something Other about all of Lockwood and Co. after their journey through the portal, but none are so marked as they are.

The strands of her hair that had not already faded to white now resemble snow; she is old before her time. Her hand—where she touched him, unprotected, dragging him back to where he belongs—is bleached like bone, thin and fragile and pale, a stark contrast to the brown of her skin. Lucy Carlyle is more dead than alive.

He ambles about with an awkward stumble, no longer deft and graceful. He fits in his own body like a foot too big for a shoe, a spirit shoved uncomfortably back into its prison of bone and flesh. He remembers too much: how it was different on the Other Side, the ease and energy with which he moved. But he also cannot shake the longing loneliness, the pull toward the darkness. He remembers how he could not grasp his own thoughts as they slipped through his mind like sand through shaking fingers. He is so limited, muddled, but he has never been so wise.

And—Anthony Lockwood remembers Jessica, the sister he now surpasses in age. He remembers the feeling of separation between them, how  _close_  she was, and how far she is now.

They are marked, but Lucy regrets nothing.

* * *

 

She observes his figure, still on the ground. Dead. Lying there, lifeless, the world crashing down around him.

Behind her, Marissa screams—and screams—and screams— Lucy pays her no mind. She is dying, dead, and deserves every moment of agony.  _She killed Lockwood_.

" _Well, that's quite a shame,_ " says the specter behind her. " _Well, let's go, then. We've got to get out of here before—_ "

Lucy kneels down and touches him. Lockwood is still, the life sucked out of him by Ezekiel, the ghost who spent his last protecting Marissa. She would be baffled by how her runty, sarcastic skull could best such an ancient and powerful Visitor, but there is no time for such contemplation now.

Marissa's screams cease. The building is still, the world silent.

" _You know DEPRAC is coming,_ " the boy who was once a skull says. " _If you don't want to leave before they catch you and throw you in jail for the rest of your life, that's fine."_  The ghost floats in front of her and waves a spectral hand in front of her face. " _Hell-oooo? Anyone in there, Carlyle? Lockwood's dead, now you've got me—smarter, funnier, infinitely more handsome—_ "

Lucy rises. "I'm not going to let this happen."

" _Wh-what?_ " the ghost demands.

Lucy is barely listening. Her Talents are focused on one thing: the portal, the rift to the Other Side.

She runs: down the stairs, across the hall, past the screaming Fittes employees, and into the room where the rift resides. The skull drifts behind her, screaming obscenities, though whether that is in an attempt to stop her or simply to terrify everyone else, she doesn't know.

She bursts into the room. Fittes researchers shout in horror, reach their arms out to grab her—they are blown back by a blast of deathly chill as the skull swoops through them. They fall screaming to the ground as ghost-touch consumes them.

She finds the spirit cloak, thrown haphazardly on a table by some researcher. She wraps it around herself, ignoring shouts of protest from both the remaining researchers and the skull.

Lucy steps into the rift.

Cold engulfs her. She barely notices. She turns around and walks a shambling walk back to where she came, across halls and up stairs and toward Marissa's room.

A thousand ghosts scream. They reach at her, then fall back as the cloak's silver repels them.

Only one is undaunted. A gangly, spiky-haired youth floats after her, his grin morphed into an ugly scowl.

" _What the hell are you doing, Lucy?_ " he demands. " _I thought you wanted to stop all this._ "

"I'm taking him back," she says, so certain that the boy flinches.

" _You can't,_ " he says. " _The most you could do is bring him back as a ghost, and he'd not be a Type Three, darling. Too dull, that one. And he wanted this, Lucy._ "

"No," she says. "He wanted me."

" _Damn, you're only just noticing?_ " the skull quips. " _It's a little late. He's_ dead _, there's nothing you can do about it._ "

"Mariss Fittes conquered death," she says. "Take me to him."

The skull wavers; relents. He shrugs and leads her onward.

Marissa is there. She is bug-eyed and withered, a shell of Penelope's beauty. Without her Type Three, she is nothing. She hisses and claws at Lucy in empty malice. The skull sneers and shoos her away.

" _Type Twos._ " He snorts. " _Failure in death as well as life. So the mighty fall. I bet your Lockwood—_ "

She sees him, lying still on the floor. Only, he is not alone.

A girl stands beside him, an echo of herself. Her face is splotchy with the stains of ectoplasm, her hands shaky. Her eyes glimmer faintly, and she is murmuring—something.

Lucy's Talent is different on the Other Side: stronger, sharper, more draining. Even without it, she knows who this girl is, floating over the crumpled spirit of Lockwood.

"Jessica," Lucy breathes. Or perhaps she doesn't. Can one breathe in death?

" _Lucy..._ " comes the faint reply. " _Lucy..._ "

"How are you here?" Lucy asks. She shivers; she wishes Lockwood's spectral form would stir. "You didn't die here."

" _Always...here..._ " Jessica hisses. " _Anthony...is home...Now...Free, free—_ "

" _God,_ " the boy at Lucy's side gasps. " _She's— He was her Source. Tying her here. That's why he shone so bright, even more than you!_ "

Jessica floats toward her, so close Lucy can feel her lack of breath. Undeterred, Jessica reaches past the biting silver and touches Lucy's hair.

She cries out, a flash of pain shocking her scalp. Dizzy, she falls back.

" _Take...him..._ " Jessica whispers, the strain of communication apparent in the wavering of her figure. " _He...needs...you..._ "

Lucy shakes. She kneels at Lockwood's side, too scared to touch him.

"Lockwood..."

No response.

" _Lucy, you're—you're dying, you know,_ " the boy says. There is unmistakable fear in his voice. " _You haven't got much time._ "

"Since when did you care?" she snapped. "Lockwood..."

" _He can't—_ you  _can't—_ " the skull protests.

"Anthony!" her voice cracks. "Anthony, please!"

He stirs. The first thing she sees are his eyes, searing her without even a touch. They are white, all the way through: holes, chasms of emptiness.

" _Lucy,_ " he says, and there is no hesitation, just one word. " _Lucy._ "

His eyes drift; they focus again at a point over her shoulder. " _Jess._ "

" _Anthony...go..._ " Jessica whispers. " _I'm...fading..._ "

Lucy reaches a hand of her cloak, ignoring the hiss as its warmth withers in the ice of the Other Side. "Anthony. Will you let me?"

He looks at her hand, then at Jessica, then at her face.

He smiles.

Lucy takes his hand.

There is no barrier between them. She is rattled with the shock of death; it shakes through her and she can feel his ectoplasm seeping up her arm. But she holds on.

He is hurting, too; the fire of life burns him until his hand steams. But he holds onto her, and she holds onto him.

"I'm getting you out of here," she says.

" _Holy f—_ " whispers the boy.

Lucy pulls Anthony to his feet. Hand in burning hand, she leads him out of the room, through the lifeless Other Side.

Jessica is their guard, drifting before them and warding off Marissa and the other ghosts. The boy who was a skull trails behind them, dumbfounded.

Lucy grows weaker and weaker; her hand shakes. The rift is within her reach when she stumbles. No one catches her for fear of harming her more.

" _Lucy,_ " Anthony whispers. She still holds tight to his hand despite the pain. She looks up into those dead white eyes and somehow finds the strength to fall through the rift.

Warmth and light shock her heart into motion; she hadn't realized it had stopped beating. Still, she holds on.

Anthony remains on the Other Side, their clasped hands spanning the rift. He looks back, a longing in those dreadful white eyes. The skull floats through with ease, still staring at their hands. Jessica stays behind.

" _Jess..._ " he whispers.

" _Go,_ " she says. She kisses his forehead—then pushes him back.

Lucy stumbles forward as his form falls back into the physical realm. She sees Jessica's pale form dissipate as her Source leaves her at last. Anthony cries out, broken.

The researchers have fled. DEPRAC must have arrived by now. Surely they would have found Lockwood's body. A surge of anger pushes her forward—if they had touched him...

But it is not DEPRAC who awaits. George and Holly linger by the body, tears streaming down their cheeks. They dare not get too close—they have not forgotten danger in their grief.

Lucy can barely feel her arm. Anthony holds her hand tight: he whispers, " _Lucy_." All he can say is her name.

She pries his fingers from her hand. "Anthony," she says, her voice choked. "I brought you back—now go!"

Holly and George stare in incomprehension. Lucy cries out and falls to the ground, at last succumbing to the ghost-touch. Holly shouts for DEPRAC; George swears through his tears.

Anthony touches the hand of his own dead body.

" _It can't work,_ " says the boy ghost. " _It can't..._ "

Anthony smiles. And then he is gone.

That is all Lucy sees before she passes out.

* * *

 

She wakes to find a boy she does not know asleep by her bedside.

"Who..." she says, her mind foggy. Her hand aches. She looks down and feels a chill run through her spine. It is bone-white. There, functional, but—marked. Stained.

The boy wakes with a start. "Lucy!" he exclaims.

She represses a scream. She knows that voice.

"It's me," he says, and though the face is different, the grin is the same. "I figured—Fittes did it, Lockwood did it, so why not me?"

"Oh, god..." She feels like fainting again. "Whose...body did you..."

"Steal?" he guesses. "Some poor DEPRAC kid who got ghost-touched. He won't mind. I made sure of it."

She doesn't want to know the details. She especially doesn't want to know which ghost touched him.

She looks around. Back in Portland Row, in her old bed. Oddly, the skull sits on her nightstand.

"I kept my old head around for sentiment's sake," he explains.

"And how did the others take it?" she asks in a strangled voice.

He shrugs. "Well, they had other things to worry about. I think Cubbins is avoiding me." He grimaces. "I must say—being alive again  _does_  have its downsides."

"It beats being dead," says Lockwood from the doorframe.

Her heart stops, this time not from Other-chill.

The boy—she needed to learn his name at some point—rises and bows to Lockwood. "All yours, milord," he says sarcastically.

Lockwood glares and replaces him in the chair as he leaves. He sits, awkwardly, gingerly, as if he doesn't quite remember how.

"How are you?" he asks.

She looks at him. His eyes are back to their warm brown, but there's a glint to them—that Other-wisdom is still there, the mark of of his time in death.

"Good as you'd expect." She offers a smile. "I have so many questions. The skull—you—Lockwood, I don't—"

"Won't you call me Anthony?" he asks, with such tenderness she melts.

"Anthony," she says softly. "Do you...remember her?"

"Jessica? Of course." He closes his eyes. "I...all along, I carried her with me. I don't know how...how it's possible, two souls in one body, one dead and one living. I never knew..."

"And yet you're here.  _He's_  here." Lucy shakes her head. "It's all impossible, Anthony."

"Lucy." His eyes open. There's an odd look in them, different from that Other-light. "You saved me."

"I couldn't let you die." She feels a tear run down her cheek. "Even if..."

He touches her hand. She flinches and cries out. The burning glow of heat and cold in a single flashing breath sweeps over her. Her hand is all but dead now, and life and death were never supposed to mix like this.

He jerks his hand away, but she grabs it back.

"Not all pain is bad," she murmurs.

He leans down, perilously close, and—

Well, some things are private. Some things even nosy boys-who-were-once-skulls do not need to know. But they have a bond that cannot be broken, not by death, not by time.

And it was not Anthony's time, but a time for something else—something full of life alone—to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Lockwood being Jessica's Source is not my idea, I took that from @lucelockwood on tumblr, and I didn't really flesh it out much here but it's definitely an idea I'd like to explore more. (Again, loose interpretation of canon rules, lol.) And once I realized that not only was there some sort of canon(ish) basis for spirits moving in and out of bodies in the form of Marissa, well I just HAD to include our Skull getting a body of his very own!  
> Thank you for reading!


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